St. Landry democrat., 1887-02-26
without attaching to it ITS name.

| OF the early history of the abolition move
ment Garrison remarked that half the force
expended was lost in meeting and quelling in
ternal chickering's and jjealousies.
So it was i'll Washington's tinse. Many of
his officers were Jealous of him. Jealousy is
always active, Burr murmures, Gates de-
precated, Lee disobeyed orders, Arnold
plotted, Ward entEeavOred to supercede Wash
ington These are the few coming to light
This. the inside battle fought by Washing
ton, was harder than the outside fight against
the troops of King George! The first was as
the worm eating at the core, aud destructive
to the strength to be concentrated against the
common enemy, Internal dissatisfaction is
the traitor at ones back, ready to strike
when your arm is lifted to resist the outer
foe The same foe was at work III the more
recent rebellion. Political meddling per
sonal ambition and personal antipathies indi-
rectly cost the lives Of as many northern
soldiers as the shot of the south. 1t was the
conviction of the nation that the unlimited
command should be given single man that
won the fig ght as much as the man himself
Grant at the commencement of the war,
would have been nibbled to pieces by the rats
at WashingtOn-in and out of uniform
Washington was nibbled at by the Continen-
tai rats of his time during the entire seven
years war. Seven years IS long period for
a ragged, hungry host Of men to tramp about
from New York to Yorktown, with winter
quarters on a frontier Of snow buried noun
tains. Take railroads, steamboats, and tele-
graphs out of the country, put a foreign foe
i'll One-haf the cities and towns where the
women and children remain, let all news
travel by horse, with possibility of capture
by an enemy; reduce the value of greenbacks
to almost worthless paper, make one third the
population traitors and another third doubt
full and respondent, make the calpIng knife
of the hostile Indian at Saratoga, destroy the
navy, live in country which as yet is not
nation, has hardly dreamed of its own
constitution and government, and the major
ity of whose people, striving for liberty, are
doubtful as in whom or what the power really
rests, and we have more of the features and
difficulties beSetting the man chief in COM
mand 100 years ago.
Washngtons army was at best but sorry
affair-a body of lily paid, lily fed, lily
clothed men--dissatisfied men, who came and
went almost at their own pleasure. Number
ing at the most Tut few thousand, it might
in a months time be depleted one-fourth or
third by expiration of terms of enlistment.
Desertion was easy and safe. The Americans
at Bunker Hill were simply crowd of men
armed with muskets, not an organized force.
Bunker Hill was fought by general train
ing muster" and Lexington by an awkward
squad of Americans. The English were but
little better in some respects. Their officers
heads were muddled by over feeding, over
drinking and conceit. Neither Grant nor
Jackson would have so managed
as to have given all Boston notice that they
We're to march to a village seventeen miles
distant and capture military stores
Washington marched and fought his fiuc-
tuating force much of the time without any
base of supplies. His men lived from hand
to mouth" How many teams laden with
-four and other necessaries could have fol-
lowed the American army after the disas-
3rous rouC on Long Island and the midnight
of the East river? His powder and
cannon were fabricated at places liable at any
to sudden capture by the English.
the entire war there was not a
county embraced in the colonial territory
but was subject to incursion by the enemy at
any moment, possibly all its able bodied men
far absent in the Continental army and with
the Tories on the ground ready to assist and
betray. The British navy barred the whole
sea coast. Their vessels could penetrate bays
and ascend rivers where our people had not g.
gun or man to repel them.